Luke Rinaldi: Sweet Mate Promotions

Live Music Is Sweet Mate: Luke Rinaldi.

Between managing the bands The Ghost Hotel, Capital City and Red Jezebel and booking and promoting tours, Luke Rinaldi is a very busy man with his company Sweet Mate Promotions. He also sits on the Department of Culture and the Arts Contemporary Music Panel. And making him even busier, he also books live music for both the Hyde Park and Rosemount Hotels and the annual WAMi Festival.

Having been involved in the local music industry for over ten years now, Luke has been booking Saturday nights at the Hyde Park since 2000 and taking care of booking the majority of live music at the Rosemount Hotel since 2004.

“With the Hydey Saturdays, my good mate Dave Cutbush had been booking them previously, and he asked me to book the nights for a small period while he was going away. Upon his return, he decided to pursue other pastures, so the venue management asked me to keep going.”

He continues: “With the Rosemount, the venue manager at the time, Kevin Robe, asked me if I would be interested in booking the venue, and I was delighted to accept the offer.

There’s no question that live music venues are integral to helping to develop local music scenes and allow bands to cut their performance teeth before heading into the national and international markets.

The Hyde Park has a long history of supporting local music and the Rosemount underwent renovations a few years ago to help better cater for live music.

Luke says: “The Hydey is very local music-focussed, but has plenty of interstate tours and the odd international [act]. The Rosemount, being a bigger venue, is very focussed on interstate and international tours but has plenty of opportunities for local [music], especially for CD launches.”

At the Rosemount, Luke says his role changes quite often: “[My role will change] depending on what is working on other nights. I look after the overall bookings for the venue but don’t have hand in things that aren’t my bag e.g. drum ‘n’ bass nights, Funk Club etc.”

Having been a volunteer at the West Australian Music Association (WAM) since 1996, Luke went on to be employed by the organisation for a short period of time, leaving in 2001. He is still involved with the organisation; working as a contractor booking the annual WAMi Festival.

“[I mainly book] the venues and the acts based on the results and findings from the genre-specific panels that sift through all the applications.

The WAMi Festival is helping to take the WA scene to the national and international stages.

“[It is] very important and has had a lot to do with giving WA music a national – and sometimes international – focus, especially in the eyes of media and east coast industry.”